This is Day 19 in our series 28 Days to Build a Successful Blog and I want to touch on something many of you may be thinking about doing. However, maybe you felt you shouldn’t. It is high time you did a guest post for a blogger in your niche or outside of your niche. Even if they are not in your niche, their audience may be similar to yours. People have different interest and you never know what your target audience may be reading.
Effective Guest Posting
There is a right and there is wrong way to guest post. One mistake I see some guest posters do is forget they are not writing on their own blog, but someone else’s. You have to keep that in mind. Here are some key points you need to remember.
Target the Right Blogs — One thing to consider is to not just look to one of the bigger blogs out there to guest post on. Some of the best blogs to do a guest post on are not the so call “big boys”. True, the bigger the blog, the bigger the audience. But more important, try to find a blog to do a guest post on that has an audience similar to yours. Lets face it, the reason you want to guest post is to gain some exposure for you and your blog. If you find an audience similar to your own, you have a better chance of converting some of those readers to your own blog. Even blogs outside your own niche may have similar audiences. Don’t just stick to your own niche.
Spend some time considering what you are going to guest post about — Don’t just repurpose something you have already written about or something the Blogger you are guest posting for has posted about in the past. You want to make a good first impression and spending some time considering what you are going to post about is important. Research what the posts on the blog you are guest posting on have been about. See if you can fit your guest post into the general theme and offer something new.
Approach the Blogger you want to guest post for — The best way to do this is to have an idea of what you might want to post about. Have this nailed down before you approach the other blogger. While I would suggest you have an idea of what you want to post about and to relay this to the other blogger. I would not write the post ahead of time and send it to the blogger on the first contact. You can spend your time better doing other things. After all, they may not like it nor like you.
Write your best content for the host Blogger — I know this is something I should not have to tell any of you. But it needs to be said. Guest posting is a great way to get exposure and a great way to develop a relationship with other bloggers. Don’t give them junk. Give them your best stuff and it will pay off in the long run. Take your time and do it right.
Put your guest post in the proper format — Ask the Blogger what format they would like the post in. If you can have it html ready, all the better.
Do your own short bio so it makes them want to click through to you — As a guest poster, you will be allowed to tell a little bit about yourself. Make it interesting and give them just enough that they want to click and read more about you on your own blog. You can also include your link and I would even include a link to your twitter profile. Don’t have a twitter profile, get one. If you are a blogger you must be on twitter.
Have some kick butt content on your front page — You need to have some awesome content on your own blog when you guest post. Remember, your goal is to get exposure and to get readers from the other blog to come and visit yours. If they get there and your content is just plain unremarkable or not interesting, they are not going to stay, nor come back.
Make sure your new visitors can find your subscriptions options — There is nothing worse than to go to a new blog I have never been to before and then I have to hunt for how to subscribe. Make this easy to do and give them at least two main options, RSS and Email.
If you get comments on your guest post, reply to them — This is something I encourage all my guest posters to do. In fact, if I guest post, I always subscribe to my guest post’s comments so I know when someone replies. And this is just good follow up too. You are going to not only please the Blogger you are guest posting for, the readers will see you are engaged and want to know more. Just another reason to get to your blog to check you out more.
Promote your guest post — Promote your guest post on your blog and on social media. Just one more reason to be on twitter. And get your twitter friends to promote it too. Not only will this get you exposure. You are also getting the Blogger exposure too. It is a win-win for you both.
Your assignment
Do a guest post on another blog this next week. I know you will see some great results by doing so. If you have any other tips you can think of that should be considered when guest posting, please leave them in the comments to this post. Lets keep the conversation going.
UPDATE
This is a great list of reasons why you should be doing a guest post now and than. It is from one of the blogs I read often, The Blog Herald.
Sure, you can try other link building methods but these days guest posting gives you the best return for your time. Here are a couple reasons why.
- Links in the content: These type of links carry the most authority as opposed to sitewide links like the ones on the sidebar or footer.
- Free: In this economy, free is good. Plus, paid links are more risky today with Google cracking down on more sites.
- High success rate: Most bloggers seem to know what guest posting is and they don’t mind publishing quality content from other bloggers.
- High quality traffic: The people who come to your blog after reading one of your guest posts are more likely to become repeat visitors.
- Leads to more links: This applies more to guest posts published on popular blogs. Oftentimes the popular bloggers follow and link to each other. If you get a post published on a popular blog, you’ll get on the radar of other popular bloggers. They might choose to follow your blog too, which can lead to future links.
- Builds your network: With guest posting, you’ll be building your online network since you’re helping out your fellow bloggers. This can lead to possible collaboration projects in the future. Plus, blogging is much more fun when you’re connecting with other bloggers.
